The Minister's Son
by KillerGeishaYumi
Summary: Modern AU. Dragons are demons, etc.; inspired by "Wear It Anyway" by OrHowFar (and that oneshot probably would fit somewhere after the first four chapters of this fic, if it's the same universe).
1. Prologue

Berk might have been a little town, far enough north that winters were easily nine months long, but it had reached the twenty-first century with no trouble. Greenhouses, heaters, electric lights, and snowplows were much appreciated by everyone.

On the surface, it looked like a peaceful place. There was little crime, because everyone carried firearms as soon as they were old enough to take shooting lessons; seemed that petty crooks didn't fancy looking down the wrong end of a gun, and even crazy people thought twice before causing trouble. They also met weekly in the Great Hall to air and vanquish grievances, and to teach all the children together things that they couldn't learn at home.

Ask a Berkian, and they would agree that Berk was a peaceful place.

Except for the demons that lurked the streets by night.

Ranging in size from large motorcycle to small bus, equipped with fangs and claws, and capable of breathing fire and lava, demons weren't something you wanted to see coming at you in a dead-end corridor. Most of them could fly, though they weren't equally proficient at the skill, and many could also dig (at least through snow). They seemed to dislike human comfort: a crowd of people in a warm, moderately-lit room didn't need to worry about a demon suddenly appearing in their midst. During the long, cold nights of winter, with the plowed snow turning streets and sidewalks into high-walled labyrinths, it wasn't safe to step outdoors alone. It _definitely_ wasn't safe to leave the village alone, at any time of year – get too deep into the nearby forest, and it would be just like descending into night. Nobody could say if the terrible howls echoing out of the woods were the demons singing over their ill-gotten suppers…or the victims' terrified voices, embedded into the very trees to continue wailing long after their owners had died.

If such an after-sunset journey was necessary, people armed themselves with what many in Berk referred to as the "Sacred Trine" – a gun or other weapon to fight demons off, a mirror to look around corners (and a large enough mirror would startle the demons), and a piece of chalk to draw protective or entrapping wards. All three were blessed by the local minister, at least monthly if they were used often, to retain their effectiveness against the demons.

* * *

The minister, Stoic Haddock, was the most powerful man in Berk. Not only did he have the best track record at slaying demons and crafting protective wards, he also could banish demons to the Underworld (where, presumably, they couldn't come back) by the dozen. Because of the sum of his abilities, people were constantly going to him to ask advice or demand justice; being also well-read both of the spiritual texts and secular laws, he was able to provide most of what was asked.

Because Stoic "the Vast" had earned the cloth from his father, who had earned it from _his_ father, and so on for a total of six generations, it had been assumed that the next minister would be his son. In theory, since Stoic _did_ have a son, this could yet be true. When presented with his baby son, fifteen years ago now on February twenty-ninth, the first astonished words out of his mouth were, "He's just a hiccup!" The transcriber on duty took the description for the name, and completely by accident the babe was legally christened Hiccup. As it turned out, the name was appropriate.

In practice the boy showed promise academically, but…he didn't grow up strong, and _did_ grow up asthmatic, so he couldn't participate in the strenuous physical games that other kids his age thrived on. He couldn't even lift, much less use any weapon dangerous enough to be taken seriously; he had remarkable accuracy with a light firearm, though, so at least he wasn't _completely_ defenseless in the event of a demon attacking him. As for wards, he could set pencil to paper and draw any of the diagrams for shields, traps, and even banishing – but when he tried to draw them at a functional size on the classroom floor, his _best_ was completed so slowly that in a hostile situation he would have been long dead; speed just made him sloppy, and no amount of practice showed any improvement.

Stoic treasured his son all the same, flaws included; he showed it by locking Hiccup indoors when the sunlight vanished, so the demons couldn't help themselves to a tiny morsel.

After all, he reasoned, it wouldn't do for Hiccup to be carried off before he hit his growth spurt. It would happen one day; then he would become tall and strong and gain some coordination, and _these_ days would simply become bad memories as he stepped out a man able to defend the people. He would never be a _great_ minister in these parts – unless the Powers Above bestowed a miracle and cured his asthma – but he would at least be able to do the job and be respectable at it. Until then, it was Stoic's responsibility to keep the boy safe at night.

He felt he was doing a good job.

He'd have been less sure if he thought to check the computer's browsing history.

* * *

Feeling left out, constantly scorned by his cousin, Hiccup had retreated into the world of the Internet. His circle of online friends was greater than Scott's circle of "real" friends, all of whom actually liked him and were sympathetic to his plight – even offering suggestions, of varying degrees of practicality, on how to improve things.

In the course of an extensive discussion it was hypothesized that his failure to "cast a ward" properly was due to his being a leftie and trying to follow a pattern originally designed by a right-handed person. It made sense: ninety percent of human beings were right-handed, so it figured that their wards were designed to be drawn with the right hand. Which would then be incredibly awkward for southpaws. One user was rather eloquent about it:

 _You're working backwards no matter how you try to do it "right." I bet if you tried to draw these things in the most natural way for YOU, you'd get the exact opposite effect of what a rightie would get._

That user, whoever he or she was, had struck the first spark.

Hiccup wasn't allowed out of the house when the demons roamed; even if he could manage to sneak out, his asthma would very likely ruin him. Killing a demon and presenting proof to the real-world kids in his neighborhood would make his life infinitely better – he might even get a girlfriend – but the only way he could encounter a demon in order to kill it was…

If he summoned it himself.

It went against absolutely everything his dad ever taught him, of course. Slaying demons was a good thing; _summoning_ demons would be a very _bad_ thing, if anyone ever thought that anyone would try it. Nobody ever had tried it, because it was considered a given that summoning demons would be committing suicide the hard way. Easier to take a hike in the Woods That Howled, if you wanted to get eaten. For weeks he tried to banish the idea, dismissing it as a stupid one every time it started gnawing at him – which only happened several times in a day; it was tenacious, he could give it that.

Then, one Sunday, he watched as everyone in town walked right past him to discuss matters with his father…and he realized that he was nobody in the eyes of the village. Hardly anybody in town really knew _Hiccup_ , and they didn't care to; he was just the minister's son, and a pathetic one at that.

Something snapped that day. He decided to try and summon a demon; he would kill it, cut its heart out, and show it to his only real-world friend Fisher. Word would spread, and he would become popular for being the first fifteen-year-old to slay a demon. Eventually Stoic would hear about it; hopefully when he did, the story would have gotten so distorted that he would think Hiccup had encountered the demon while out with friends.

Hiccup set the date for Friday night (obscurely hoping that maybe he would talk himself out of it before then) and started preparing. Banishing demons required a full Trine, so Hiccup considered it a given that summoning one would also.

The diagram was easy, though time-consuming; it could be drawn on technically any surface, though the floor was easiest for accuracy at the size he would be working. Hiccup spent the first two nights clearing an empty space on his floor, large enough for the smallest "banishing" diagram he thought he could draw (which, let's clarify, was still pretty big; blessed chalk made wide-ish lines, requiring intricacy and size to go hand-in-hand).

The mirror was a little harder, since it had to be placed so that the one using it could see the entire diagram in it; Hiccup had a wall mirror the size of a decent shield, and spent a couple of hours finding where and how he could prop it up (securely) so that he could see as much of his floor in it as possible.

The hardest part was the weapon: in demon-banishing, Stoic used a shotgun to essentially blast the demon through the portal he opened, but how did a weapon fit into demon- _summoning_? On Thursday night he asked his online friends for their opinion on the subject…and he found out how bloodthirsty a lot of them were, as the answers ranged from "cut yourself and spill a little blood on the chalk lines" to "invite your stupid cousin over and kill him as a sacrifice" (he unfriended the user who suggested _that_ – he couldn't stay buddies with someone who condoned murder, even as a joke). The general consensus seemed to be, _lure the demon to you with the smell of fresh blood_ , which at least did make sense.

He never did talk himself out of it.

* * *

 _ **Author's note:**_ _Before you all start complaining that this chapter is nothing but narrative summary, IT'S JUST A PROLOGUE! Next chapter starts the real meat of the series and gets more exciting, I promise!_


	2. Last (Friday) Night

When Hiccup opened his eyes, his first blurred impression was of a war zone.

He closed his eyes again. He was cold, stiff, sore, and his skull was probably fractured in a dozen places for it to hurt this much; an apocalypse was the last thing he wanted to cope with right now.

Eventually, feeling a bit more alert, he looked again. The dream didn't fade. His desk was about a meter out of position, his chair was missing, his wall mirror was lying face-down on the floor – which also had black lines running around on it – and in short it looked like a raging battle had broken out in his room. Instead of being in bed like a sensible person at this hour, he was blocking drafts at the door; probably keeping the odd, burned smell from getting out and alerting the rest of the house.

 _Did I…get in a fight?_ That made no sense at all. He made it a point to _duck_ fights at every opportunity, running if he could and talking if he couldn't. Besides, what fight would explain that smell?

This position was not conductive to thought…slowly, carefully, Hiccup dragged himself up to a sitting position and looked around more carefully.

His chair was in the corner, well away from his desk, and seemed to have a few legs loose. The black lines resolved themselves into a diagram – one that seemed to have been scorched there by a giant branding iron, which explained the smell. A knife was embedded in the floor between the mirror and the diagram, its edge scored with red and black like someone had used it to chop zebra bacon.

 _Okay…what the heck happened last night?_

Hiccup shut his eyes and folded up to rest his head on his knees. Fighting off his headache, he reached back to last night for all he was worth.

* * *

 _ **Start Flashback**_

* * *

 _Deep breaths, that's the key…slow, deep, breathe in, breathe out…_ If he was to successfully kill the demon he summoned, he would have to maintain perfect control over his breathing. An asthma attack at the crucial juncture would kill him – if, for no other reason, that it would distract him from a demon that would then see him as disabled prey.

Assuming demons thought like normal predators. And they seemed to – they targeted lone travelers first.

The floor was clear and ready for the diagram. The mirror was balanced…a little precariously…on his chair (which was carefully braced with his nightstand so it wouldn't roll or turn) and braced against his bedpost and desk. The knife was on the floor, well away from the mirror; he'd tested it on a corner of his sheet, and it was razor-sharp. The chalk was in his left hand, a yardstick in his right.

 _Everything's ready. Last chance to back out._

One last deep breath…and Hiccup started to draw.

It was like a dance. One swift, continuous line in a small circle; the pentagram, carefully oriented around the circle with one point aimed directly away from the mirror; a second circle connecting the pentagram's points; the runes, ten of them, placed around and within the pentagram's points. His movements were all counterclockwise, and far smoother than when he tried to "dance" clockwise in a regular diagram.

 _Why didn't anyone try to design a_ counter _clockwise diagram?_ He knew why, of course: widdershins was considered an anathema.

All the while, he murmured prayers – borderline nonsense, mostly, with the occasional plea for mercy and forgiveness when he thought of how angry his father would be to catch him at this. _What_ the prayers were was of only minor importance, according to the books: the point was the meditation, the focusing of the spirit and the establishing of a rhythm. This was what activated the chalk, and turned mere lines into something more.

As he closed the diagram and stepped back, it began to glow faintly. The light caught in the mirror – and a tunnel wavered into view, silvery-white lines harsh against deepening shadows that blotted out the reflection of his room. The image seemed to writhe disconcertingly; he hoped it was supposed to do that. The last time he'd watched his father banish a demon was…goodness, months ago now.

Hiccup put down the chalk (which was also glowing) and picked up the knife. Dropping the yardstick, he contemplated his palm and the sharp edge and wondered where to begin. No crossing the veins or tendons, he knew that – he didn't want to lose the hand – but should he draw the blade up or down? Come to think of it, how big a cut did he need to make? How much blood did he need to shed before he got a demon's attention?

 _If you overthink this, you won't be able to do it; and the ritual's really too far along now to safely stop it._

Quickly inverting the knife in his hand so it was pointing down instead of up, he lined the sharper side up carefully against his palm and grabbed the blade – just tightly enough that he felt the pressure of its edge. Shutting his eyes tightly and holding his breath for a moment, Hiccup jerked the blade free. His hand stung sharply for a second, and then subsided to a dull throbbing.

 _That wasn't so bad._

He extended his hand palm-down over the outer ring and let the blood drip from his cut and run down his fingers, watching carefully to see that it struck the chalk lines exactly. It hissed and smoked like droplets of fat on a hot iron – and the light gradually changed from silvery-white to deep red, taking first the outer circle and then spreading to the pentagram and the inner circle. The runes, not being actually connected to the other parts of the diagram, were the last to change color.

 _Now_ he felt lightheaded and nauseous, and his chest was just beginning to produce its warning wheeze, and he wanted nothing more than to sit down for a minute. The room fluctuated between too large and too small, and the floor swayed…or was he swaying?

 _Keep it together, Hiccup._ There was nobody home right now to save him if things went wrong, so he had to do this right. He couldn't cave now, not when he'd come so near to his goal.

A roar echoed up from the depths of the tunnel. The red light wasn't as good for revealing as white light would have been, but a shadow seemed to be approaching. A shadow…that was vaguely serpentine at first, writhing and thrashing as it came nearer.

Hiccup wrapped a sock around his bleeding hand (it was what was available) and readied his knife again. " _Step into my parlor," pretty fly…_

He refused to dwell on the fact that this particular "fly" would be larger than the "spider" luring it, though not as big as a Deadly Nadder and probably not as big as a Gronkle. He did not _want_ to summon a Flame-Eater or Terrible Terror, because both were notorious for slipping right inside living flesh and controlling it (with side effects that had given them each their names). If he went small – and then missed his stroke – he could find himself possessed and either craving molten foods or suffering the worst panic attacks of his life. Either one could aggravate his asthma, choking him to death before anyone realized what was wrong with him.

He didn't know _what_ kind of demon he was getting, actually; just that it was small enough to fit in his room (and probably through his window, given that shape), but big enough that it wouldn't consider possessing him. That narrowed the list down quite a lot, but there were still at least four demons that it _could_ be.

With a final roar the demon slammed into the floor. It fought short legs under it, hissing, and started shaking its feet and rubbing at its head like a fastidious cat that had fallen into muck; clearly it didn't like the blessed chalk. It even had cat ears – kind of. Only three things ruined the catlike image: its mouth was much too wide and had no visible cleft to the lip, its tail was too long and heavy, and it had _very_ big wings.

Something was wrong. Hiccup should have been able to make out some details on its hide at this range, even in the red light and the moderate amounts of smoke rising from the diagram…but there was still nothing. It just looked all black.

An old folktale-description surfaced in his mind. _A shadow within a shadow, the Unholy Offspring of Lightning and Death Itself…_

 _Night Fury!_

Hiccup hadn't truly believed until now that they still existed; he was sure they'd left when Berk was illuminated by the bright electric streetlights, because an all-black demon would be picked out far too easily against the stark white of the snow. Perhaps they'd all fled to the Underworld…meaning that summoning one would be the only way to encounter one anymore.

Hiccup spoke without thinking. "Oh wow, I…"

The Night Fury writhed to stare at him with _massive_ , slit-pupiled green eyes. It looked him carefully up and down, eventually focusing on the knife in his hand.

Hiccup froze, fascinated. Even his breathing stopped.

Suddenly the demon sprang – or tried to. It screeched as it fell back down, and thrashed as though the smoke was a net binding it to the chalk lines. For a very long moment, it fought to free itself; no telling what it wanted, because its efforts were futile.

 _Wow, the…the "spider to the fly" thing is pretty accurate after all. He's stuck in a web – my web._ That was probably the most shocking part of all: the blessed chalk had been tainted by blood, and it was still bane to demons. The Night Fury couldn't get out of the diagram, and was in pain from rolling all over the lines.

It stared at him again, seeming…almost…to ask, _so you have me now; what are you going to do with me?_

 _Do? I'm going to kill you, of course._ "I'm going to kill you, demon…" Hiccup adjusted the blade in his hands, trying to stabilize his wheezing breath before it got bad enough to need his inhaler. "I'm going to cut your heart out and put it on display…I'm going to…"

So why was he still talking and posturing instead of striking?

He couldn't…he couldn't possibly be thinking of a _sporting chance_. The battle against demons wasn't about _sport_ , or else no one would ever trap even the largest demons in chalk symbols to kill them safely. It was about protecting the weak. The frightened. The ones that couldn't protect themselves.

Defenseless.

Like the Night Fury was at this exact moment.

 _No. No, no, no, I'm not going to pity this thing! I'm not!_

It had to be some kind of demon magic that made him see a helpless child in this Night Fury. But even as his mind fought to reject the comparison, his heart ached from it. He stared at his captive, tortured – and it stared back, those unnatural eyes full of pain and…

Fear.

 _Can demons truly feel vulnerable?_ This one seemed to. It looked as helpless as he felt.

He tried again to see the monster he'd summoned, to steel himself for the kill. It was to no avail – he could still see the black beast, the wings and the tail and all, but he couldn't recapture the sense of danger. It was just a crippled child.

 _Aw, hell._ He was lost: this demon's spell had reached his heart, and now his own emotions wouldn't let him slay the thing he had summoned.

 _What do I do with it now?_

He'd pretty well proved that he couldn't kill a demon before it completely mesmerized him into _not_ killing it. He didn't know how to send it back to the Underworld. Most importantly, he couldn't leave it in the middle of his room: he'd never sleep again, and it wasn't like his dad _never_ visited. There would be hell to pay for this, if he was caught with a summoned demon. _Especially_ if it were still alive.

 _Can I release it?_ He didn't know how to do that either.

Unless…

Hiccup looked at his wrapped hand.

The chalk on the floor was tainted with his blood. If this particular demon could drink blood, maybe it could get a taste of his and become inured to the sigils – at least enough to drag itself out, and then it could escape.

 _But this is a demon! How could I let it loose to ravage Berk?_ His mind wailed the logic; his heart effectively pointed at the Night Fury and answered, _does that look capable of ravaging anything? It's too big to possess even a big man and too small to wreck even a small shed_ (conveniently ignoring that any type of fire-breath would devastate a building) _, and those scales wouldn't protect it from a truck._

Reluctantly his mind conceded that if he let this demon go it would probably just leave at top speed, and for the same reason that the species had most likely vanished centuries ago: the snowy streets were too well-lit. The Night Fury was a thing of…well…the night. It thrived in total darkness, a thing that this particular northern town hadn't had since electricity was supplied.

Hiccup slowly moved the knife back, dropped the sock, and extended his right hand – kneeling down to put it closer to this low-slung demon's face.

The demon snarled warningly at him.

"I know, you don't trust me," Hiccup said slowly and clearly, putting every ounce of concentration he had into reinforcing his words with his spirit. Like activating the chalk. "I haven't given you any reason to trust me. But I have an offer for you. I give you the key to release yourself, and you go away without destroying anything. Okay?"

His hand just barely crossed the outer line, and he stopped. For a long moment they both sat there, with Hiccup repeating over and over, "I let you out, and you leave in peace." Then, just as he was closing his mantra the third time, the Night Fury made another attempt at lunging. This time, its jaws clashed shut on his hand.

Everything got blurry after that. Hiccup's asthma chose just that instant to launch a real attack, and he dropped the knife to fumble out his inhaler and try to use it one-handed. He felt truly sick, the room spun like a roller coaster, _he couldn't get a breath_ – he was sure he was going to die.

Then…

Well, he got that breath.

He staggered backwards and hit the door, drawing heavily on the inhaler, and watched the released demon through a white haze.

The Night Fury jumped up on the bed – shaking it badly enough that the mirror came un-braced and rolled to the floor – and then lunged for the window; Hiccup couldn't understand why the window didn't _break_ when the demon hit it.

Somehow, he had the presence of mind to wrench the door open and hide behind it when the demon rerouted to lunge at him.

Its voice echoed in the hall as he slammed the door shut again.

* * *

 ** _End Flashback_**

* * *

And that was it. He'd slid to the floor, completely drained – and several horrible but now-mercifully-vague dreams later he was leaning against the door wondering why his right hand was still attached. And, for that matter, why he was still alive.

Hiccup dragged himself slowly back to his feet. His legs felt wobbly and his chest was wheezing again (thus reminded, he looked around and saw that he'd dropped his inhaler behind the door), but his stomach felt better…if rather empty.

 _I'm not ready to deal with this mess._ The knife was probably ruined, stained by who-knew-what; hopefully the rug was large enough to cover that diagram, because there would be no getting it out of the floor; Hiccup didn't even want to touch his mirror again, never mind look into it. And he wanted to bolster his blood sugar before trying to reassemble the rest of his room. Breakfast time.

It didn't occur to him that he was still wearing yesterday's clothes – and hadn't checked them for telltale signs of last night's activities – until after he walked into the kitchen where his dad was grumbling around. By then it was too late: the big man had noticed him.

He was…somehow angry and pleased simultaneously. A combination that intensified when he saw Hiccup, so whatever it was, was Hiccup-related.

"Good morning, Hiccup."

Hiccup waved. "Hey. Is there any oatmeal left? I'm starving."

Stoic laughed. "After all that salami you ate?" He brandished the empty package. "I promise you, I have absolutely no problem with you helping yourself to a midnight snack when I'm not here. I don't even have a problem with you finishing something off. However, I have just two favors to ask of you."

Hiccup stared blankly at the package. He didn't even like salami.

"One, you don't put the empty package back in the refrigerator. Two, you make a note somewhere that you finished it off. All right?"

"Uh…okay…"

Stoic got the oatmeal container down and set it firmly on the counter. "Help yourself."

Hiccup nearly burned the oatmeal thinking about what really happened to the salami. If he hadn't eaten it and his dad hadn't eaten it…that only left an unexpected houseguest. Who had arrived last night and left early this morning.

 _The Night Fury. Wow, I wasn't expecting it to realize that the Big Shiny Box had food in it._ But why did it go in the kitchen? There was only one window in there, and it was smaller than Hiccup's bedroom window.

Thinking about his bedroom window reminded him of that peculiar crash…and he suddenly remembered the blessed guards in the frames of all doors and windows leading to the outside. Apparently they kept demons _in_ as well as _out_ – and giving the Night Fury his blood had only let it escape the tainted chalk, not the pure wards. It would have free run of the house, but…

 _No, no, no – don't panic, you'll set your asthma off…don't panic…_

It couldn't get out.

If _all_ the outer frames had well-maintained guards (why wouldn't they?) then the Night Fury would still be in the house somewhere. And if his dad found it, his first question – after he killed it – would be " _how did this cursed thing get in my house?"_ Which would lead to an investigation, which would uncover the tainted sigils on Hiccup's floor, and even the densest inquisitor would be able to put two and two together at that point…

 _I am so screwed…I have to find the Night Fury before my dad does._


	3. Pact in the Attic

Since Hiccup had to go back to the scene of his crime anyway to collect his Blessed Trine (absolutely no way in hell was he approaching a demon without protection), he decided to clean up and conceal the evidence. Get that out of the way, so he wouldn't have to worry about his dad looking for him anymore. The first thing he did was pull the knife out of the floor – and then, briefly distracted, he tried to whet the stripes out of its edge with his sharpening stone.

It just went blunt – with shocking ease. Well, maybe he could sharpen the other side and reverse it; the unstriped side of the blade seemed like it would still hold an edge. Resolving to work on that another day, he put the knife in a drawer.

The rug was big enough to hide the diagram. Barely. New rule, don't kick the rug. Now all he needed to do was buy some scented candles and burn them for a few days, because the only other way to clear that scorched-wood-and-blood smell was to leave the window open and let in the wind (which would turn his room into an icebox).

Next he rearranged his furniture.

Yes, it was delaying the inevitable, but getting his desk and chair back into functional positions raised his "empowered" levels a bit. He wanted to feel as mighty as possible, and convince himself that he could face his reflection in that mirror again before he tried to pick it up.

Perhaps five minutes later – with clean clothes on, his bed made, and his room completely back to normal except for the mirror on the floor – Hiccup was ready. He stooped down and hooked his nails under the edge of the glass.

And promptly jerked away, rattled.

It was like…the mirror was still connected to the Underworld, and touching it opened a connection between that world and his brain. For a second, before he'd snatched his hands away, something like a warning growl had thundered in his skull and echoed all the way down to his heels.

So much for confidence.

Well, Hiccup knew one thing: if the mirror was still linked to the Underworld, he didn't want it hanging on his wall. No telling what might figure out how to crawl through. But he couldn't leave it on his floor either – at least not out in the open. If his dad saw it down he would pick it up, and that would be the end of…everything.

Even if what was wrong with the mirror was entirely in Hiccup's mind. Especially then.

The attic? Or the basement?

 _Yeah right…and how would I get it in either of those places? I can't even bring myself to pick it up._

Under the rug?

 _Uh, no, I think I want all three signs of my stupidity as far apart as possible._

The simplest solution would be to just slide the cursed thing under one of his corner piles of stuff (one that was well away from both the door and his bed), and that was what he ended up doing.

Simplest…but not easiest. He had to push the mirror along a couple inches at a time with his sneaker-covered foot, and he had to lift segments of the selected pile so nothing would get wedged under it. Every time his knuckles brushed the mirror, the growl would brush his eardrums in disturbing harmony with the rattling of his lungs.

 _Why did I think summoning a demon to kill was such a great idea?_ Looking back on it, now that he was struggling with the consequences, it sure seemed like a really _stupid_ idea.

Hiccup was sweating and shivering when he finally got the mirror safely in the corner. He sat for a couple minutes on the floor trying to recover, and took a puff on his inhaler to make his asthma shut up.

 _That's it, I'm done…I'm going back to bed._

Except he couldn't.

First of all, he hadn't ever gone to bed in the first place and therefore couldn't very well go _back_ to bed. Second, he still had a demon to find.

* * *

It wouldn't be in any of the lived-in areas of the house. Too easy – for someone else to catch it. It might sneak back to the kitchen for food, but otherwise it would be lurking somewhere nobody went regularly.

That left the attic and the basement. Both were dusty, so Hiccup found a surgical mask and strapped it on before he began his little expedition. He decided to check the attic first: it was _the_ least-visited place in the house (his dad was too big to fit anywhere in there except straight down the middle), people tended to not even look up, and the Night Fury might be able to claw or blast its way out through the roof.

Besides, Hiccup had a room right under the attic. He had to know.

Poking the hand mirror up the hatch ahead of him, he turned it slowly to see as much of the attic as he could before he committed to poking his head up. When no glowing eyes or burst of fire greeted him, he edged his way into the attic. He put a hand out to brace himself – and knew at once that he'd hit the jackpot.

Not because there were tracks – but because there was no dust on the floor to leave tracks in, when neither he nor his dad had come up here to sweep in half an age. It hung in the air instead, tossed by the wind of giant wings. Everything was quiet, but he knew.

 _He's here. Somewhere._

There weren't a _lot_ of hiding places; the attic was the final resting place of everything Stoic and Hiccup didn't use anymore, but for one reason or another couldn't throw out – and neither of them were super-sentimental, so there were only about ten or twelve boxes. Hiccup slowly crept around them, using his mirror to check around the corners and look over his shoulder.

About three boxes into his search, a breath tossed his hair.

Hiccup froze. Then, slowly, he turned the mirror so that its reflection caught what was on top of the box he was creeping behind. _Why did I think_ this _was a good idea?_

Well, there was the Night Fury: close enough to touch – or for it to reach out and rip his head off.

 _Don't make any sudden movements…_ Hiccup wanted to laugh at himself. Sudden movements? He was petrified. He couldn't move at all, let alone suddenly. He'd never be able to…

To…

 _What_ was _I going to do with the demon once I found it?_ Now Hiccup wanted to bang his head on something. Had he even _had_ a plan for once he found the Night Fury, or had he forgotten that part altogether in his haste to be the one to find it first? _I have to start thinking these things through more carefully. While a demon's breathing down your neck is the worst time to start planning how to handle that demon._

At least it wasn't breathing fire. It was just sitting there, staring at him with those big glowing eyes, looking like it was trying to decide what to do with _him_.

 _I think I surprised him._ That was…it could be bad, but in this particular instance _surprise_ seemed to be working in Hiccup's favor. He had time to think – if he thought fast, because who knew what the demon would decide. _If I'd thought to bring food, I could have tried to convince him that I'm friendly._

Suddenly the demon shot out a paw – so fast that Hiccup had no time to even think about ducking – and ripped the mask off his face. Delicately it sniffed at the slightly-mangled fabric in its claws.

With a wheeze he tried to stifle, Hiccup felt his face. Nothing hurt (well, except for his ears a little bit where the elastic had been looped), and when he looked at his fingers again there was no blood on them. The claws had never touched his skin.

 _Precise creature…_ as his panic receded, he was grudgingly impressed. And wholeheartedly relieved. He had one scar on his face already (of mysterious origin, it had just always been there), and the last thing he needed was another five. How would he explain _that_ to his dad? _Well, I just fell down the stairs; he'd never believe that._

Then Hiccup went completely still as the Night Fury leaned forward and down to sniff his profile. Its ears quivered at every wheeze of his lungs; he wondered what would happen if he tried to get his inhaler, and if he should start now (in slow motion, of course) to give the demon time to notice and investigate before he needed it. He wasn't questioning that he _would_ need it pretty soon, with all the dust in the air and his mask missing.

Hiccup had needed the inhaler last night, at the end; he'd been trying to work it one-handed right before the demon let go. Had the Night Fury seen it? Had it understood what it was seeing? How intelligent _were_ Night Furies?

He tried to adjust his position a tiny bit to get more comfortable, but he'd stayed still too long and that one teensy movement triggered a spasm in some leg muscle crucial to the balance of his current position. He toppled over instead, landing hard on his shoulder, and the mirror skittered out of his hand.

In a flash the demon was on top of him, its body pinning his arms down so he couldn't readily grab his weapons or his inhaler – but miraculously, it didn't actually attack him. It just stared some more, and brushed its quivering nose up and down the central line of his face.

So very, very close. Hiccup could feel an energy (like heat, only it wasn't; how was that for a description?) radiating from the demon to wash over his entire body. And pulse through him…with odd effects. He could feel his bones vibrating, shaking the tension out of his muscles even as they instinctively tried to hold everything still. Something similar to the Night Fury's voice filled his ears so completely that all other sound ceased to exist, up to and including his own wheezing. The attic rolled and pitched like a ship in a storm – no, a maelstrom. And yet he wasn't seasick; he couldn't _hear_ his organs' rhythms, but he could feel them and they were steady. Calmly dancing to the tune of the demon's pulse.

This wasn't possession, but it was close. It was…

Thrilling.

The Night Fury licked his neck, and his mind just about melted. He wondered what he'd been so afraid of; this was the best thing that ever happened to him. Nothing else had ever turned his blood to wine, or left him so completely relaxed that he might as well be boneless. Nothing else made him shiver this much – in a _good_ way. Probably not even drugs would have sent him this high, although never having tried a drug trip he didn't actually know.

Right at that moment, if the Night Fury had demanded his soul, Hiccup very likely would have agreed to hand it over.

* * *

When Hiccup opened his eyes again, the Night Fury was gone. He felt very strange…kind of numb, except he was warm. And sluggish. His body didn't much want to move – and when he finally did sit up, his stomach felt a little swishy.

 _What was that?_

Oh, he remembered everything that had happened. Mostly. If there was a point where he struck a deal with the demon, he didn't remember _that_. But what he did remember, it could have been something the Night Fury did to him by accident.

Remembering his mirror, he looked around for it. The thing was blessed, fully charged to repel demons, and it seemed cruel to leave it here while a demon was still in residence.

Speaking of which, there was the Night Fury; sitting calmly at the other end of the attic, watching him. Two boxes in front of it was the mirror, with the slightly-tattered surgical mask dropped carelessly next to it.

Hiccup got up and slowly approached, trying hard to not look threatening. When nothing happened he picked up, first the mask (which he put back on), and then the mirror. Then he looked at the Night Fury and took a deep breath, putting every ounce of concentration he could muster into his next words.

"How long will you stay here?" He was a little surprised it hadn't blasted through the roof already. It had had several hours to make its getaway during the blackest hours of night, and it could easily have run _away_ from the lit streets.

The demon cocked its ears and tilted its head, and really seemed to consider the question. Its body shivered, it opened its mouth – and Hiccup just had time to notice the odd detail that it seemed to have no teeth – and a long, low, mournful sound echoed through the attic. Images and emotions unlocked inside Hiccup's mind, displaying in stark black and white behind his eyes.

He'd been right, it had come up here for the express purpose of tearing itself an escape route through the shingles – but before it could make the attempt, it had noticed the disfigurement left upon it at some point during the summoning: a ripped-off tail wing. This particular demon was intelligent enough to know that it needed all its wings balanced to maintain stability in flight; it also was self-aware enough to know that it was of the "downed demon = dead demon" variety (they weren't all: Gronkles, for one, were quite capable of self-defense even if they were rendered flightless) – and in fact was practically the poster child of that variety. Ripping through the roof would then require it to run over the snow, thus becoming a target for anything and everything in search of prey. A better idea was to crawl along the ground right under the heavy drifts, but it couldn't dig through the permafrost and didn't (yet) have the resistance needed to cross the blessed thresholds.

Basically, the answer to Hiccup's question was "Forever and ever until unless walk out at ground level."

 _Great. I'll be taking the blame for his eating habits for a long, long time._ Hiccup shook off the effects of the howl and looked at the Night Fury with resign. "Let me know when you think you are ready: I'll open the back door for you." He backed up to the attic hatch and carefully edged his way down.

 _I wonder how he thinks he's going to build up enough resistance to cross those._ Maybe when he snuck down for food, he would wander around the house and rub himself on all the wards? Surely that would be risky…

Safely back in his room, Hiccup set the mirror down on his desk – and paused. His hand _ached_ when he let go, like it sometimes did when he'd been carrying (for longer than he should have) something very hot or very cold. And now his palm was a little itchy, and thickly covered with tiny red and white welts where his skin had pressed tightly to the handle of the mirror.

 _What the…_ it hadn't done that before. Had the demon done something to the mirror?

 _Ha. No, be realistic. What do you remember happening up there, smart guy?_

The demon had done something to _him._ It had made him more sensitive – and slightly allergic – to his own Blessed Trine.

Suddenly Hiccup knew what his life was going to consist of until the demon left. It would probably call him up to the attic every few days or so (or come to his room, yikes) and leech off his natural immunity to bolster its resistance. He wouldn't be able to resist answering the call – would he even know that it was calling and he was answering? Could his visit today, and his decision to check the attic first, have been demon-influenced ideas? He hadn't had a plan at all when he went looking…

Two things happened near-simultaneously, distracting him from his broody thoughts. First, something made a tiny snapping sound near his shoulder; second, he realized that he wasn't feeling the onset of asthma symptoms that usually came for panic and stress.

Hiccup felt carefully at his shoulder – and quickly found a couple of popped stitches high in his sleeve. Which was oddly tight at the shoulder…and so was the other one, which also had popped stitches.

 _What?_

Suddenly Hiccup wanted a mirror. He dashed for the bathroom and slammed the door, and fought his shirt off (hearing stitches pop every hard tug). Once free of the garment, he looked at his reflection.

His delicate little frame had thickened and hardened – he could _see_ the muscles through his skin, ready for his analytical mind to identify and label. He was almost _buff_.

For a second, all he could do was gape. Then he experimentally flexed his arms like he'd seen Scott do – and decided that it looked both silly and wimpy; he hadn't turned into his cousin, physically or mentally. Shifting gears, he sprang lightly into an attack pose reminiscent of karate. Or, well, some kind of ninja martial arts.

It still looked a little silly, but there was a lot more promise of better things to come.

 _All right!_

Now Hiccup felt a little better about life before the demon left. If it was going to be taking (and requiring that he rebuild his own resistance), at least it was giving something in exchange. It gave him a little of its own strength – and toned down his asthma, at least, so panic wouldn't activate it. He wouldn't know if his asthma had been eradicated completely until it was put to the test.

 _Giving and taking in equal measures. Balance. I can live with that._

Except he was going to need a few more shirts; he'd been slightly overdue for clothes shopping before, but he hadn't worried about it because they all still fit pretty well. Now that he was getting some actual muscle, though, the smallest of his shirts were going to start breaking stitches.


	4. Devil in the Church

The Haddocks took Sunday very seriously because of all the particular responsibilities that rested on their shoulders, and always began preparing for it the day before. All the house-cleaning that had been left during the week was done; their finest clothes were cleaned and pressed; junk food was banned by Saturday noon, and no cheating by scrambling to eat that last candy bar at 11:55. A full shower, with the best soaps and shampoos they could afford, to scrub away the sweat and grime of a whole week; clean sheets on the bed, and lights out at nine-thirty. They hadn't set out to make all of Berk do the same thing, but after several generations it sort of happened because that was what people did, at least in small towns: when they see a greatly-respected figure doing something a certain way, for one reason or another they start to follow suit. Then it spreads from there because nobody wants to be the odd man out, and before you know it the entire town is following the greatly-respected figure's lead without his ever having to say a word.

A few generations back somebody _did_ go ahead and declare Saturday the official "washday of the week" with blessings. It was Hiccup's cynical opinion that, before that, half the town didn't even realize there was a religious logic to having everything all tidied up the day before. Or maybe it was paranoid logic: holes in walls and piles of junk would be a lure for demons in search of homes, if left for more than a week – and _all_ of the demons small enough to take advantage of that sort of thing could possess people.

Yes, Hiccup's own room was a mess – or it _looked_ a mess. But there was a system to it, and every Saturday he went through everything to make sure he hadn't mixed it up over the week; or if it was bad enough or he had been mixing up the same piles repeatedly for a month, he would simply change the system to what it was obviously supposed to be. Now, of course, the system included "the rug is exactly where I want it, please don't kick or roll it" and "put the biggest and least-frequently-disturbed pile on top of the cursed mirror."

* * *

"Please fit, please fit, please fit," Hiccup pleaded with the universe in general as he slowly pulled on the second of his last two dress shirts. The first was _way_ too tight in the shoulder: he hadn't even been able to fasten it at the top. And the other two were in the dirty-laundry bin, and it was _Sunday morning_. This would be a very bad time to find out that neither of his clean shirts fit anymore.

The shirt was the last hurdle; he was completely dressed but for the shirt. His pants were a bit snug but otherwise fit okay, and the shoes were even less of a problem. He _definitely_ needed to go clothes shopping – the last Sunday-best purchases had been longer ago than the last casual-wear purchases, and these shirts were starting to get a little tight even before he got demon-buffed.

The buttons closed without a fuss, and the cuffs still hid his wrists. Hiccup sighed in relief and nearly sagged…and straightened again as he felt the fabric strain. The shirt might fit, but only just – and this was a _dress_ shirt. There was basically no give to it, especially around the shoulders.

 _Oh God, the shoulders…this thing's_ tight _across the yoke._ Good thing he combed his hair already, because he'd never get his arms over his head with this thing on. It felt like the seams would rip wide open if he so much as shrugged.

It would do, though; it kind of had to. Service was in ten minutes.

Hiccup trotted downstairs to see his dad putting on a coat. "I'm ready."

Stoic gave Hiccup a quick once-over – and scowled. "Change your shirt."

Hiccup almost did shrug then. "This is my last clean one that fits at all; I checked. It's fine if I don't have to move my arms much." He got his own coat off the hook and realized he might have some trouble putting it on if his arms were locked down. "Uh…"

Stoic grumbled, once again the proud-and-aggrieved papa, and took Hiccup's coat. "After service and lessons, you're going shopping. How's your budget?" He shook the coat out and held it for Hiccup to slide into.

Hiccup lowered his arms gingerly into the sleeves. "Not enough for two dress shirts."

The coat was pulled up quickly and settled in place. "Only two?"

"I could only check two; the other two are in the wash. I don't know how they fit." Probably not much better, though.

Stoic pulled out his wallet, still grumbling almost good-naturedly, and removed a handful of bills. "Here." He tucked the bundle into Hiccup's pocket and, taking his hat, thumped out the door.

Hiccup eyed at the threshold warily.

Last night had been…uncomfortable. The bath soaps had _burned_ , and the sheets were rough and threatened to smother him; it was well past eleven when he finally fell asleep, exhausted and rubbed raw. Seemed that everything his society counted among the "blessed" or "sacred," _he_ was now almost allergic to because of the Night Fury. Fortunately, by the time he woke up (about an hour after his alarm went off), he'd mostly become inured to it. He was able to choke breakfast down, and fitting-problems aside he could put on his Sunday best. Surely he could cross the ward.

 _Just two steps forward. Left foot, right foot._ He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and followed his dad.

He felt the ward as a burning, stabbing sensation in his arms and feet, and he got lightheaded for a second. Then it was over and he was outside.

 _That wasn't so bad._ Maybe he could get through the day.

* * *

Hiccup really ought to have expected the service to be worse than a mere ward. He nearly got up and left during the opening prayer, only restraining himself at the last minute. Shutting his eyes tight and holding his back rigid, he sent up a prayer of his own: that he would have the endurance.

At least it wasn't _painful_ – just so uncomfortable that he couldn't focus on his dad's words.

 _Like having a ribcage full of rocks…_

Just as well that his shirt was so tight; the end of first service was a relief to him regardless, but this time he had to work to restrain himself from a heavy sigh. Standing up slowly, he forced himself to _walk_ out of the sanctuary and to the first of his classes.

Everything that _could_ be learned exclusively from a book or online was taught at home, at the student's pace; all subjects that were best taught in a regulated environment with tools, or that _required_ more than three people, were taught at Great Hall. It generally went Science, Art, Demon-Fighting, and Sports.

Yup, the kids were taught how to fight demons. With real demons. And lethal weapons.

And Hiccup shared the class with his cousin Scott, who actually enjoyed kicking butt.

Demon-Fighting was his _favorite_ Sunday class.

Actually, he probably would consider it his favorite if only it didn't include an on-the-job approach. He enjoyed learning about the demons and how they fought, and what made them different from other living things and each other. Fisher liked that part, too; it was how he and Hiccup became friends.

 _Maybe that's why I couldn't kill the Night Fury: because, deep down, I wanted to observe it in action._

* * *

Science wasn't so bad (aside from being shoved into a table by his cousin), but between the tight shirt and the knot in his chest art class was more difficult for Hiccup than usual. He fumbled his tools, and his practice diagrams were about as bad as they'd been when he was first trying to draw them. As if that wasn't bad enough, Scott was making a big deal over how _he'd_ drawn his own diagram "perfectly." The stupid thing wasn't _perfect_ – but only two other students had gotten it better.

Hiccup's breath was coming less and less easily.

"Are you okay, Hiccup?" Fisher asked as they entered the training ring.

"Yeah, mostly," Hiccup muttered back, "I just _really_ wish we could take this class at home." He tried to whisper, but didn't quite succeed at controlling his breath.

Scott let out a braying laugh and thumped a fist between Hiccup's shoulder blades. "Oh, sure, and you'd keep demons in the basement for it." Then he strode past, completely missing his cousin's choke and almost guilty expression.

Fisher shook his head ruefully. "No, I know what you mean. I wouldn't mind if they kept students on a strictly theoretical basis until the last few developmental years, and _then_ had us fighting real demons. I don't know why they do it this way." He looked thoughtfully around the ring. "Huh. Looks like somebody captured a Scauldron."

Hiccup looked around himself. There was a full water trough standing against the wall at about the spot where a pile of rocks was placed when the class was expected to fight Gronkles. "That…looks too heavy to tip over," he said nervously. "We won't be getting rid of his ammunition."

"There's only enough there for two or three good shots, depending on the Scauldron's size. We're probably supposed to make him waste it…or…something."

"Great." Hiccup couldn't run in these too-tight clothes.

 _I wish I could breathe…_

Gob strode in. Well, staggered: his right leg wasn't what it used to be. "Let's get started. As you might have guessed by that bathtub over there, today's demon is a Scauldron."

 _Yeah, that was pretty obvious._

"Scauldrons are ruthless, merciless, and unpredictable – but once their skin dries out, it gets too brittle and flaky to be decent armor." He pointed at the trough. "Your job today is to keep it away from that until it retreats. _Without_ drawing lines: your chalk would be useless in a real battle, because the ground a non-dehydrated Scauldron walks on is invariably wet."

Scott grinned crazily. So did his buddies, Rowan and Tomah. Exactly half the class was giving serious thought to the "best defense is a good offense" idea and just rushing the demon.

Fisher just shrugged. "Scauldrons don't like to put their long necks at risk; if we just stay near the trough and attack its neck every time it tries to reach over us…"

Astrid made an unenthused noise. She was fine with defensive tactics, but not _stationary_ defense: somersault dives and reverse tumbles were how she avoided taking damage, using acrobatics to her advantage.

Gobber threw the lever. "Stay alive!" he shouted as the door unlocked.

The Scauldron shoved its head through the door, its pouch-chin swinging as it roared. It was grayish-blue; Scauldrons turned gray when dehydrated…so this one was a little dry already. Then it dragged the rest of itself into the room. Not because it was already exhausted – but because its belly was too large and flabby for the length of its legs.

Scott and the twins took one look at the size of that thing and, apparently, decided to at least temporarily put the "good-offense defense" strategy on hold. They backed up along with the saner half of the class to stand around the trough, weapons at the ready, as the Scauldron took up most of the room.

It looked, it sniffed – it located the water – it saw the armed forces in the way. With no preamble it snapped its head towards them and roared, clearly hoping to scare them away.

The strategy almost worked. Everybody kind of jumped a little and tightened their guard, Fisher edged sideways, and the twins decided it was initiating a roaring contest and started bellowing back. Hiccup was already standing with his calves right up against the trough, and had both Scott and Astrid practically right in front of him; he had nowhere to edge to, with both of them crowding him.

"Can you believe these two?" Scott asked Astrid, turning to look at her with what he referred to as his _smoulder_. Before he continued his ill-conceived flirt, however, he decided that his cousin was a third wheel and elbowed him sharply in the chest.

And Hiccup, badly-braced to begin with, tumbled into the water trough.

If the trough was just a little bit rougher-walled, or if he'd fallen straight, he would have been fine; wet, maybe soaked, but fine. But he apparently had gone in at a bit of an angle – his shoulder glanced off the side, and he slid down the smooth sides to fit neatly in the bottom. His feet flailed wildly, trying to get some leverage somewhere in order to sit up, but nothing happened. _And he couldn't lift his arms,_ at least not enough to pull himself out _._

 _I'm going to drown – I don't want to drown – I'm going to drown Scott…_ Hiccup's thoughts ran in circles as his vision turned red.

Broad hands thumped into, and scrabbled along, the surface of his chest. He struggled for a moment, his first conclusion being that someone was trying to hold him down and make _sure_ he drowned. Then he realized that the hands were trying to save him, as when they found nothing to grip on his tight shirt they moved to catch his arms.

Stitches ripped open from collar to shoulder – on both shoulders – as the hands closed on his wrists and pulled his arms up with no care for the sleeves. Hiccup's head broke the surface with enough noise to befit a breaching whale. He coughed up some water, wheezed, and gave his hair a good shake. A jittery voice was asking something, but he couldn't make out what it was.

His vision was still mostly red. His thoughts, still running in circles, were getting more and more hostile. His whole body was shaking from cold and hot by turns. The wheeze of his asthma was starting to sound more like the buildup and cooldown of some nuclear reactor.

A figure came into stark focus, razor-edged black and white in the red blur. Scott. Scott the Lout, who never spared a single neuron to think about anyone other than himself. Scott who always had to be the center of attention, especially girls' attention. Scott who most wanted the one job in town he wasn't even remotely qualified for – the ministry.

 _And is willing to drown me in order to be next-in-line._

Hiccup's next wheeze turned into a shriek, and he lunged off the edge of the trough at Scott with a fist cocked and ready.

Scott turned, an expression of surprise and confusion on his stupid face.

The stupid lout turned right into Hiccup's left hook, and a blow that might have been on the chin was instead practically in his big mouth. That punch, or the shock of his wimpy little cousin _throwing_ a punch, sent him wildly off-balance.

Hiccup landed on his feet. Scott landed on his ass.

Everything went completely still for a moment, as Hiccup contemplated his arm with a curious air of detachment; it was shaking from elbow to fingertips, and his knuckles were a little bruised and bloody. Everywhere else…he was still trembling a little, and his chest was still heaving and wheezing, but he seemed to be calming down. Relief and satisfaction filled his expression, and he closed his eyes.

 _That felt good._

When he opened his eyes again, the red haze was gone – and he noticed something peculiar. The Scauldron was in the farthest corner from the water trough, hunkered up as small as could be, and it was staring right at him. Nobody else. Just him.

"What's with you?" Hiccup asked it, waving his still-upraised left hand to indicate he was talking to the demon.

It folded up even smaller.

"Aw, you scared him!"

Hiccup jumped at Rowan's voice; he'd forgotten she was there. Turning around, he saw her, Tomah, Fisher and Astrid all staring at him like they were trying to figure out how this was possible – and, in a strange way, like they were impressed.

"Wait, so that was all we had to do?" Tomah asked, grinning like a lunatic. "We just had to beat each other up, screaming like banshees, and that would scare him?"

"Can't be," Rowan objected, pushing Tomah. "We do that all the time in class, and none of the other demons freaked and ran."

"I don't believe it," Fisher said softly, shaking his head slowly. "I saw it happen with my own eyes, and I still don't believe it."

Scott sat up and rubbed his face. "Tell me about it. When did you get the iron glove?"

"That was his bare hand, Scott," Astrid remarked with no emotion.

Hiccup decided the best thing to do at this point was move on. "Are we done here? I'd like to get some dry clothes. And my inhaler." His chest was still making a lot of noise.

"You should probably, um, put something on that hand," Fisher suggested. "At least clean it up…you had it in Scott's mouth."

 _Ugh._ Hiccup had almost gotten to the part where he would never wash his hand, after having successfully slugged his cousin; the reminder that his knuckles were now spattered in Scott-spit, however, disabused him of that notion.

It was a good thing that Gob was busy with the Scauldron, and that his classmates were arguing about (of all things) Scott's oral hygiene. Because if they hadn't been, Hiccup would have had to explain how his damaged knuckles healed right before his eyes, and why a little of the blood beaded up on his skin…

…Was black.

* * *

Hiccup had always been exempt from sports because of his asthma, so he went straight home to change out of his wet clothes before going out again to buy new dress shirts. And scented candles.

Once home again, he sat down and started to really _think._

The longer he thought about his rage, the less sense it made. Scott was an idiot with a superiority complex; he wouldn't have used murder to put himself closer to the ministry, because he was 90% unlikely to even think of it – and if he did think of it, he would probably just dismiss it because he was _obviously_ better than Hiccup.

And that was all assuming, of course, that he even _wanted_ the ministry. His grades were evidence against that idea.

So pushing Hiccup into the water trough had simply been a continuation of the usual bullying he threw his little cousin's way. It wouldn't even have been lethal if Hiccup had had enough freedom of movement to pull himself out. Scott was too stupid to be sinister.

What _was_ sinister was Hiccup's own desire for his cousin's blood – and the _delight_ at having drawn blood, even a little. He'd actually hungered for violence, and sated that hunger by giving in to it.

 _The fury. The Night Fury._

Nothing else made sense. This was the first time he'd stood up for himself – violently – against his cousin, and the only new variable was the demon in his attic. It couldn't possess him, but it could change him; it _was_ changing him, and more than just physically. It was making him slower to reason and quicker to anger, and strengthening the desire to _act_ on that anger.

 _I'm going to have to be very careful from now on. These rages will keep getting stronger, and_ I'm _getting stronger – I might kill somebody in the grip of the fury if I don't keep a watch on my temper._

Hiccup lit a few candles, studying their hypnotic flames, and resolved to duck trouble with the same religious fervor that people used to clean house on Saturdays. Conscience thus eased, he bent his mind to the question of his black blood.

The answer was so obvious that he could have seen it yesterday, if only he hadn't been so rattled by the demon still being in the house. How much of his blood _had_ the Night Fury needed to escape the Summoning Circle? Far more than a few drops, surely: it was bigger than he was.

 _I bet he took it all, and replaced it with his own._ That made a horrible kind of sense – and it explained how he suddenly went buff in such a short time: the process for that had started the night before, when demon blood first flowed through his veins. _How did I not notice what he was doing?_

Friday night's bad dreams filtered into his consciousness: an agonizing, boiling-hot fever, a writhing sensation like worms were wriggling through his veins…he grimaced. _Oh, I noticed all right. I just didn't want to think about it._ He still didn't want to think about it.

Hiccup went back to staring at the candles.


	5. Catching My Breath

Sunday night Stoic asked to see Hiccup's hands – and, upon finding them unmarked, made various neutral comments about people "being funny to get attention." That settled something Hiccup had been worried about: his fury was so unexpected, so insane, that nobody believed it. He was the good boy – at least in the sense that he didn't pick fights and didn't sneak out. And with no evidence to the contrary, an event like what happened today would be dismissed as a mere story.

Of course, if the Fury became a regular happening, eventually even the most skeptical would agree that he'd changed. Yet another reason to be very careful.

* * *

It was late on Monday before Hiccup saw the Night Fury again – though evidence of its presence was around for him to see. It was still raiding the fridge, and had even figured out what a toilet was for (but not how to flush the thing, unfortunately; Hiccup moved some of the scented candles into his bathroom and hoped the demon was _only_ using _his_ bathroom).

He didn't know if it was entirely his own curiosity that pulled him back to the attic, or if the demon was dragging him. The uncertainty was far more disturbing than the thought that he was being controlled – in fact, he was rather sure that even _hearing it call him_ would bother him less than not knowing.

"Hello?" he called softly as he poked his head through the door.

The demon's eyes glowed in the dim light.

Hiccup carefully closed the hatch and edged away from it. Towards the Night Fury. He adjusted his mask nervously and commented, "I really hope this trick of yours isn't loud on any frequency humans can hear. Just because Dad was busy all day two days ago, doesn't mean that he's that nearly deaf the rest of the week."

If the Night Fury understood anything he said, it gave no indication. It just slunk over and flattened him against a box with its body, delicately sniffing where the mask touched his skin.

"By the way…" Hiccup concentrated harder on his next words, wanting an actual answer this time, "Why are you toothless? I was sure you had teeth." He could certainly have been wrong – the light had been horrible – but he thought he remembered gleaming rows of razor-edged daggers while the Night Fury was freaking out in the summoning circle.

The demon paused in its sniffing to look straight into his eyes; it looked almost surprised. Then its mouth opened, and a low crooning sound came out – not loud, but it _still_ resonated through Hiccup's whole body and sent him to that high place where he'd spent most of his last attic visit.

In the midst of a tidal wave of euphoria the question's answer unfurled in the last rational corner of his mind.

Simplicity itself. The demon was toothless, because he didn't want the little human to become any _more_ afraid. Fear was bad for the lure: if the little human became too afraid of him, the lure would drive it away instead – or drive it to come with lethal weapons, to conquer the source of the fear. Bad enough that he was so much bigger and stronger than the little human, and equipped with sharp claws, long wings, and a powerful tail; he could only keep those in low profile, he couldn't hide them entirely. But he could keep his fire locked inside his chest, and he could retract his teeth. Without the pearly-white points intimidating the little human at every "word," an atmosphere of relative calm could be maintained.

 _Retractable teeth…_ Hiccup's mind spun around the idea, examining it with fascination and delight. Such an impressive design feature – and how generous of the demon, not wanting to frighten him.

"I'm going to call you Toothless," Hiccup announced, bringing a free hand up to pat drunkenly on the demon's neck. "You've been here almost a week, you might as well have a name."

"Toothless" was of the amused opinion that the little human had had a bit too much rapture. He clamped his gums lightly around the upraised wrist; then he let go and moved his weight off the smaller figure, wandering back into the far corners of the attic.

It was almost a half hour before Hiccup's brain could even pretend at rational thought. Longer before he trusted his body's coordination to the attic ladder.

* * *

Midnight. Or nearly midnight. Hiccup hadn't looked at his alarm clock.

He was wide awake, didn't even feel like he _should_ be sleeping. He hadn't exhausted his daily supply of energy _at all_ ; he was still ready to go do things.

 _I guess this is the "Night" to go with the "Fury."_ Silly, to think he'd miss out on that. He'd fallen asleep and _stayed_ asleep the past three nights, but he saw now that that was only because his body got exhausted much more quickly while it was still adapting to the demon blood.

He hated being awake in the middle of the night. When he was asleep, his body was better able to adjust to the terrible cold of post-midnight and his asthma wouldn't kick in – or not so severely as to ruin his sleep. If he was awake and his chest started to tighten, he would then be afraid of suffocating if he _did_ fall asleep, and he would stay wide awake until the symptoms abated.

 _Maybe I should start working out; burn some energy._

The thought fathered the deed. Although as a workout, it wasn't much: he just got up, got his slippers on, and started walking briskly all over the house. In and out of every room on the top floor, down the stairs, around the ground floor.

And nearly had a heart attack when he entered the kitchen and suddenly was confronted by a pair of glowing green eyes.

Toothless was at least as startled to see the human as Hiccup was to see the demon – and the end result of their mutual startle was what seemed to be their default position: Hiccup on the floor, Toothless on top of him.

"Hi," Hiccup wheezed.

Toothless blinked. Then he rested his head on Hiccup's chest, ears quivering at every labored breath.

Hiccup sat up, nudging the demon back. "I have a respiratory condition. Humans call it asthma."

That got a blink. What, did Toothless think that all humans breathed like this? Rattling and wheezing like a broken bellows?

"I have trouble breathing when I exercise. And when I get emotionally worked up. _And_ when it's really cold, which around here is most of the time. _And_ if there's a lot of dust or mold spore in the air, which is why I've never liked the housecleaning part of Saturdays." Basically there was hardly ever a time when his airways _weren't_ contracted and inflamed, at least a little. Unless he moved somewhere much warmer and with primarily-clean air, he was doomed to an indoor existence for the rest of his days.

Toothless considered him for a long moment. Then he snorted.

Hiccup was halfway back to his room before he realized where he was going and wondered why the demon had _ordered_ him back to bed. He glanced back and saw that he was being followed.

"Are you going to help me sleep?"

Toothless pushed firmly on the small of his back, wordlessly commanding that he keep walking.

"Uh, no, I want an answer. Will you help me sleep through the night?"

Another snort – this one conveying an answer. _Yes, now will you move?_

"All right, all right…"

They entered the bedroom together (and mostly-closed the door), and Hiccup climbed into bed. Then Toothless had another demand, pushing at the boy's shoulder and making little grumbling noises.

" _Toothless…_ I do _not_ sleep well on my stomach. It's harder to breathe that way."

Toothless didn't care. However he was planning to help Hiccup sleep, it required that the boy be belly-down.

"Oh, all _right_." Hiccup rolled over. "Happy?"

Toothless climbed up on the bed, rested his hindquarters on Hiccup's legs – and pulled the blankets down to his waist.

" _Hey!_ " Hiccup tried to grab for the blankets. It did no good: he could touch the blankets, but couldn't pull them up while in this position – and Toothless was deliberately holding him down.

And he wasn't done.

Hiccup yelped again as Toothless tugged his nightshirt up and slid scaly forelegs underneath. Then it was a lot harder to get breath for a third yelp as the demon's weight settled, carefully but firmly, on top of his torso.

How was this supposed to _help_? It was when he most felt like he would suffocate that he had the most trouble falling asleep. If Toothless was planning to help him stay warm, his strategy needed work.

Then the pain hit.

It was a stabbing pain, like very fine electrified needles were being thrust into his body. It wasn't _bad_ , exactly: it didn't make him want to scream or fight his way free. It just confused his emotions, blurred his senses, and made him lightheaded and breathless.

He felt hollow.

His chest was on fire.

What was Toothless _doing_ to him?

Hiccup never quite lost consciousness, though for a few minutes he couldn't even remember his own name. In the depths of his scattered mind he found himself comparing this experience to when all of his blood was replaced by demon blood, and finding parallels. Notably, both of them involved mind-numbing pain instead of that forbidden pleasure.

 _Does that mean…?_

The weight left his back and Toothless nuzzled at his chin almost simultaneously – and whatever conclusion he was about to draw was lost as the rapture hit his already-stressed nerves. He didn't _break_ ; it was more like his mind and body were springs that had been wound too tight, and then released. His body writhed and seemed to swell; he thought that he groaned in pleasure, although he couldn't hear himself so he wasn't sure; and he collapsed into darkness.

* * *

Hiccup woke with the morning light, feeling groggy and a little cold. All the blankets had been kicked off the bed, and somehow he'd removed his nightshirt in his sleep. Something was wrong with this picture…something _besides_ that he'd never before lost the bedcovers or his pajamas even in his sleep. He groped around in his sleepy brain, trying to connect the dots.

A knock sounded at his door. "Hiccup?" It was Dad. "Time to get up. You're late."

Making a semi-verbal reply that was kind of supposed to be, "Coming," Hiccup dragged his heavy arms under him and pushed off the mattress.

He had just finished a good yawn when it hit him: he wasn't suffering his usual early-morning wheeze. No struggle to breathe, no tightness, and his yawn wasn't interrupted by coughing like it often was.

The asthma was gone.

 _Toothless replaced my lungs?_ He hadn't known the demon could do that – at least not without…

Hiccup felt at his back – as much of it he could reach. There didn't seem to be any claw marks; not like that would mean much, since he seemed to heal much faster now, but surely major surgery would have been equal to enough damage that some of it would scar.

 _Crazy_.

Suddenly he wanted to go for a run. A real run. For no reason at all, just…as an excuse to quicken his pulse, and to see just how far he could push himself _now_.

Clothes and breakfast first, though. He wouldn't scandalize his father or humiliate himself by streaking, and a real run would require that he first fuel up.

Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes later he was ready. Stepping outside and setting the Great Hall in his sights, he started jogging.

Almost immediately his body fired up. Lightning burned in his arms and jarred up his legs with every step. Color bled out of his vision, leaving the landscape in a stark contrast of black and white with very little in between. It felt like he was moving faster than he was.

This had happened before, when he climbed out of that water trough.

Hiccup pushed a little harder, and the feelings intensified. This was _better_ than having Toothless dump rapture into his mind – this was his actually _doing_ something, generating his own rapture. It was the difference between letting something happen and making something happen. It was…

A silhouette sprang into his path, disrupting his thoughts.

He identified the sudden obstacle as "human teenager" the instant before he connected with it; he identified it as "female" the instant after. Then he was too busy wrapping his arms around her and throwing them both into a tumble to actually recognize her – and after the customary _oh crap_ , his brain was too busy figuring out how to land on the bottom (so as not to seem like this had been a strategy to take advantage of her, and anyway he healed faster) to logically name her from the few clues he had. The startled scream right in his ear offered no clarity.

Eventually they stopped – and Hiccup had successfully put himself on the bottom. He blinked up at her and grinned like an idiot.

"Sorry: didn't see you there," he offered just as his eyes returned to normal.

It just had to be Astrid, didn't it? She seemed disinclined to accept his apology, too. At least, the way she was shouldering at his embrace and half-beating him as she pushed herself up suggested that she would love to bury him alive.

"Here, um, let me…why don't you…what's the matter?"

Astrid had gone very still, her eyes flicking between his face and his chest. Her hands were pressed hard against his torso, and could no doubt feel his newly-hardened muscles and heaving breaths through the fabric of his shirt. Her face…that expression wasn't shock, exactly, but it seemed to be a cousin to shock.

It seemed to be a visual embodiment of what Fisher had said, just two days ago. _"I'm seeing it with my own eyes, and I still don't believe it."_

Hiccup cleared his throat. "Um, I have absolutely no logical explanation for any part of this situation, so…if we could just…not talk about this, then that would be great…"

Astrid cut him off. "When did you suddenly become _capable_?"

"And there you go, talking about it."

That got a rather unladylike snort. "Going to be like that, are you?"

Hiccup waved his hands. Anywhere but within range of Astrid-touching. "Can we at least _not_ have this conversation with you sitting on me? In the middle of a public sidewalk?"

Astrid seemed to give that some serious thought, at least. "Fair enough." She got up and dragged Hiccup to his feet, studying his arm under the tight grip of her hand. "How about you show me where you work out?"

Dear God, she actually sounded _curious_.

"Um…" How was he going to get out of this one?


	6. Mind Games

Hiccup sat on his front porch, icing his ankle and praising his luck.

Normally twisting an ankle was bad luck, with no silver lining to it. However, Hiccup had shamelessly used it as an excuse to not show Astrid where he worked out until it mended (also giving him time to come up with a suitable "gym"), and especially since it was feeling better already due to his accelerated healing, he couldn't be too upset about it.

He'd had to fast-talk his way out of writing down any addresses for Astrid to check out on her own, though. A lot of bullshit about how a note could be read by absolutely anyone, and copied, and then people would be coming to see how the scrawny guy became "capable" and if it could make a _passable_ guy completely spectacular, and it would cease to be a special place. Thinking back on it, Hiccup was sure he sounded absolutely paranoid.

And yet, strangely, she agreed – with a slight huff, but without a real fight.

It was odd. Astrid was _not_ the type to back down about something that had her curiosity, especially something athletic. So why did she just…give up like that?

Hiccup considered briefly that she had relented to allay his suspicions, so that she could follow him to where he did his workouts. Conclusion: she was definitely smart enough to think of that, but not such a delicate strategist to make it that subtle. If that was the plan, she would have acted _completely_ amiable about waiting until he was fully fit – and, being desperate himself, he might have fallen for that.

 _Maybe I hypnotized her._

The thought was in jest, but as soon as he thought it he remembered a strange, electric tension that had been between them while he was scrambling after excuses. He'd thought that was because it had been hard to look at her beautiful face when he'd been trying so hard to not be completely honest (looking away would have been a dead giveaway that he was hiding something). But what if that wasn't it – or wasn't _only_ it?

 _Did Toothless give me the power to hypnotize people – even if they aren't normally hypnotizable?_ That was one of the few things Hiccup knew about hypnotism: it worked best on someone who was open to suggestion. Astrid was a lot of things, but suggestable was not one of them.

Hiccup replayed the memory, thinking about every tiny movement in Astrid's face and body. There had been a pattern to her muscle tension that suggested, beneath the conscious mind that was focused on him, she'd been going back and forth between alert and dozing. Never getting so far into _asleep_ that her sharp brain realized she was getting sleepy, but definitely dialing back from her usual jacked-up self.

 _Putting her into a suggestable state._ That was…interesting. _I wonder how much I can influence someone, and how long the influence lasts. I'll have to experiment…_

…On humans?

Hiccup felt sick.

 _Not_ on humans. First of all, he still had a conscience and using a fellow man (even an obnoxious one) as a guinea pig ran straight against that conscience; second, if he did unbend enough to use…say…Scott as a test subject, surely someone would notice that the lout was acting weird. _Weirder._ And there'd be investigations, and interrogations, and…

Well, whether or not it could be traced back to Hiccup would depend entirely on whether or not a subject remembered being hypnotized; and if so, how clearly. How the hell was he supposed to measure _someone else's_ _memory_?

No. He would practice on animals; there was farmland just outside Berk, so there was plenty of livestock.

 _Okay, so I'm going to be spending the week trying to hypnotize cows and sheep. Into doing what?_

Well…something practical would do. Telling them to run _towards_ _the barn_ in the event of a demon attack, instead of willy-nilly; convincing them that they did not _like_ those plants that humans actively cultivated and harvested, so it wouldn't be a disaster to any crops if they got out of their enclosures.

If the hoof-toes proved impossible, he could always try hypnotizing the dogs into herding them correctly. Predators were smart, weren't they? Dogs, especially, were smart enough to work together in packs; surely they had enough mind to manipulate.

Right. He had a game plan for testing his mind tricks. Now what was he going to tell Astrid?

* * *

 _Run._

 _I had to take the one hallway with no side exits, didn't I?_

 _Just keep running. If you stop, he'll catch you. There has to be a light at the end of this tunnel._

 _Why is he after me? I don't understand…_

 _I ran smack into my own image._

 _There was no door; only a large mirror. And the face I saw in it was…still mine, but covered in fine black scales. My eyes were slit-pupiled, and my ears were larger and pointed like a German Shepherd's. My hands were also scaled and black, and my fingers ended in claws._

 _All I had left that was human was my shape, and that only just. The rest of me was Night Fury._

 _Another reflection loomed behind my own. Dad's. His face was twisted in hatred, and the blessed shotgun was in his hands. Aimed at me._

 _The banishing sigil was under my feet…_

 _He was going to cast me into the Underworld?!_

 _I spun around, backing into the mirror, and held my hands up in frantic entreaty. I screamed for mercy, knowing it was already too late…_

Hiccup came awake fighting for breath and trying to kick the blankets off. Trapped…he was trapped in the dark, he had to get out…

Green eyes appeared in the blackness above him, and their owner warbled softly: not quite _shh_ , but that was clearly the message. Toothless was practically sitting on Hiccup, keeping him from thrashing right out of bed – and one of his scaled paws was pressed to Hiccup's mouth, stifling his screams.

Nightmare. Just a nightmare.

Hiccup couldn't remember ever having had nightmares before. Bad dreams, yes; nothing that jarred him straight out of sleep and kept him awake the rest of the night. Nothing that…

Tears welled up in his eyes and slid out the corners. His throat closed, and his body trembled beneath the demon.

There was just no denying it now: he was scared. Terrified beyond belief that, even if he never did turn into that humanoid demon, that would be all his father saw if the pact was uncovered. He would be killed or banished, and nobody would miss him (except maybe Fisher).

Suddenly the nightmare was pulled to the surface of his mind. The hall with no exits, the pursuit, the mirror…then it froze on the reflection.

Toothless looked at the demon-boy for a long time. Then he gently soothed away the image with a promise: whatever else he did, he would not take the little human's fragile skin. Why would he? Especially considering that by diluting his demonic powers with human blood, he was weakening himself; he would need the best armor he could maintain if he was to survive being with other demons. He would never give up his scales and claws, or his teeth. Humans had no fire sacs at all, so that part was not an issue.

 _But…_ Hiccup's mind couldn't seem to function… _even so, there is proof that I summoned you. Proof that I can't erase…if my dad finds it while I'm still living at home, he…he…_ he shut his eyes tight, not wanting to think about what his dad would do.

Toothless didn't give him a choice. He pulled out the rest of the nightmare and looked it over, all the terrified speculations; then he licked Hiccup's face until he opened his eyes again, and responded with more force. Green spotlights, chasing every shadow away.

 _I WILL NOT ABANDON YOU TO THIS FEARED FATE. WHEN I CAN LEAVE, WE WILL LEAVE TOGETHER. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM THOSE WHO WOULD HUNT MY BLOOD._

That was…oddly comforting…but Hiccup struggled against it anyway. _I can't just leave. I'm not fully grown yet; people would search for me. When I'm a legal adult, I can disappear however I so choose, but that will take at least another three years._

Toothless didn't like hearing that. For the first time in almost a week, Hiccup got a glimpse of sharp teeth. Finally he spread a wing over Hiccup like a blanket and spoke again.

 _I OWE YOU MUCH; I WILL NOT ABANDON YOU._

His weight settled next to Hiccup, punctuating the statement.

For a moment, Hiccup wondered what the demon thought he "owed." But he'd found an all-purpose exercise machine in the basement and spent the afternoon trying it out: he'd exhausted himself well past the point where the Night could keep him awake. Resolving to think about it in the morning, he let himself slide away.

There were no more nightmares.

* * *

 **#Thursday**

* * *

"Say that again?"

Hiccup cringed slightly at the dangerous lilt to Astrid's voice. Then he braced and willed himself – and her – to remain calm. He'd had a couple days of practice and had figured out that the lowest setting of his hypnotism was like a _lean_. Gentle nudges toward the result he wanted, and if they were even slightly inclined to go that way, they would; that was all he was going to do until he'd better sorted out the ethics of this hypnotic power.

"I panicked yesterday, and it led me to…to mislead you. There's no gym, because no gyms are open when I _need_ to work out – and even if they were, I'm not allowed out of the house after dark. So, on nights when I start getting stir-crazy, I go to the basement and use Dad's old exercise machine." All of that had the benefit of being true…as long as you skated over the fact that he only _started_ using the machine the day after he got his new lungs. He would probably continue using it every night for as long as he needed to be functional by day.

Astrid stared in amazement.

Hiccup couldn't decide what he'd said that had gotten that reaction, so he settled for the simplest reply. "What?"

"It's…" Astrid slowly shook her head. "Never mind. It's nothing."

Now, if Hiccup were truly smart, he'd have left it at that. Instead…he focused a little harder. As long as he was capable of finding out, he would rather _know_ than put his foot in his mouth second-guessing and being wrong. "Not with you it's not. It's never 'nothing' with you. Come on, you can tell me. What did I say that was so surprising?"

Astrid blinked a little faster than normal. "Well…it's…hard to imagine you going stir-crazy. Does curfew matter so much to you that you'd rather climb the walls than sneak out?"

Hiccup withdrew the…aura, he supposed, was what he was using. He had his answer, and now he was done with that and back to maintaining the calm. "Given that all the doors and windows are heavy-duty, and locked up tight when the sun goes down, my personal opinion of the curfew is kinda moot."

"Your dad locks you in?"

"Every night for as far back as I can remember."

Astrid shook her head again, at regular speed this time. "What, does he think it's the Purge every night? Wait, I have a better question: why aren't you completely insane?" She looked at him sideways, eyes narrowed in what he hoped was _mock_ -suspicion. "Or are you?"

Hiccup laughed and shrugged broadly. "Well, how do I answer that? Crazy people just _are_ crazy, they don't contemplate it. Case in point: the Thorston twins." _Although, I_ did _think it was a good idea to summon a demon in my room, so maybe I am crazy._

Then it was Astrid's turn to laugh – and kind of groan a little bit, probably thinking about the twins and their pranks. "Crazy or not, _you_ are something else." She patted his shoulder, and her fingers massaged the joint as though testing its strength. She glanced sideways again, and this time her expression was…odd.

Hiccup had never, ever seen that look on her face; he had no idea what it meant. It reminded him – a little – of some days in demon-fighting class, when she was most "in the zone." Only it was less crazy…or it was crazy in a different way.

 _I wish I could read minds._ Hard on that thought was, _I wish I was daring enough_ to _read her mind._ Violating her privacy was something he didn't want to do.

Hiccup cleared his throat. "So, um, anyway…I completely understand if you don't want to come down to the basement and see the exercise machine…"

The look intensified, shifted to thoughtful, and then back to the strange. "Not today…but let me know if you ever convince your dad to lighten the curfew, okay? I wouldn't mind seeing you work off a case of the nightly crazies." Then with a wink she strode off, leaving Hiccup gaping after her.

 _Now_ he knew – or at least suspected – what that look was. That was Astrid's version of a smolder.

 _She's attracted to me – maybe sexually attracted!_ Hiccup hadn't even been trying to nudge her in that direction; in fact, for a lot of moral and esteem-related reasons he'd been trying very hard _not_ to lean on her for that purpose (though he hadn't tried to nudge her away either). If in spite of all that she was attracted to him now, he was left with one conclusion: she was attracted to him because she wanted to be.

 _This is the best day of my life!_


	7. Running On Faith

_I did something monumentally stupid about a month before I turned sixteen; if you're reading this, the consequences of it have outgrown my ability to hide them while living in Berk. There's at least a chance that I am now a danger to the people I love, so don't come looking for me. Aside from that, trust me and don't worry – I have every intention of staying alive, and I might even come back someday if I manage to fix things properly._

Hiccup studied the page on his laptop, dissatisfied.

If the Toothless situation escalated to a point where he had to get the hell out of Berk (and it would; he couldn't believe that it wouldn't), this letter would be printed, signed, and left where Stoik could find it. It didn't read like a suicide note, which was good, but it didn't seem regretful enough for the mess Hiccup would leave behind: sooner or later, the summoning would be uncovered and it would be a terrible blow to his father's pride as a minister. With a sigh, he added another paragraph.

 _I'm sorry, Dad. What I've done would most hurt you, which is why I covered it up as long as I could. I will always love you and I regret that I cannot be the son you want me to be, but it's for exactly those reasons that I have to go._

Better…but there was still something missing. What was missing?

Down on the ground floor Hiccup heard an insistent knock. Heavy footsteps and a bear growl (that he recognized as "coming, coming") told him that his dad was answering the door.

Marginally grateful for the distraction, Hiccup strained his ears – but he didn't hear much, even with his enhanced hearing. Just his dad's rumble at whoever was on the doorstep, and a bare murmur from the visitor. The voices continued after the front door closed, so the visitor was now a guest, but that wasn't much of a surprise: people dropped in a lot and coaxed out the hospitality.

After a while he lost interest and gave up. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it was a friend of his father's, someone who wanted their Trinity renewed, or someone demanding a judgement. The one time left over, it would be Fisher – but he didn't stick around talking to Stoik for a second longer than he had to, so whoever that was down there, it wasn't Fisher.

Hiccup contemplated the note. Should he tell them what he'd done, or where to look to find out for themselves? Or should he plead with them not to look…no, if he was going to do _that_ he might just as well draw them a map. Human nature being what it was, if he told them not to search for clues, they would search.

Everything else he could think of would either read like a suicide note, or was just plain silly.

Maybe he would think of something later…

Suddenly a presence materialized behind his back, and slender hands reached past him to steal his laptop before he could slam it closed.

" _What-?_ " Hiccup jumped half out of his skin as he spun around. "Astrid!"

It was Astrid, all right, in the flesh and reading his note with a perplexed expression on her face. Hiccup's mouth went off all on its own, spouting half-sentences of incoherent panic.

"What the, um, that's, I wasn't, what," he scrambled to organize his thoughts and regain his composure, "what are you doing here? In my room?"

"I was going to ask you to show me that all-purpose exercise machine," Astrid replied without looking up, "but this is way more interesting." _Then_ she looked up, and cocked an eyebrow at Hiccup. "I'm not even going to ask what this is, because it's pretty obviously a confession to be read in absentia; the _real_ question here is, what did you do that would have too dire consequences to face?"

"I committed all seven Deadly Sins." And he could not believe he said that with a straight face.

Neither could Astrid, if her expression was anything to go by. "That was a joke, right?"

Hiccup thought about it. Pride had _definitely_ been involved in his decision to summon a demon; a jumbled-up mess of greed, envy, wrath and lust had been what kept him from changing his mind, and explained a few decisions since then. As for sloth and gluttony…well, he wasn't doing anything to fix the mess he'd gotten himself into (wasn't even looking into ways to fix it), and he was enjoying said mess _waaayyyy_ too much.

"Nope. Seven Sins in two weeks."

"Wow." Astrid shook her head and gave the laptop back. She seemed amazed. "That's…" Suddenly her gaze hardened. "That's not an answer. You don't just 'commit' a Deadly Sin, because the Sins themselves cover a wide range of actions; they're more states of mind than actual deeds. What did you _do?_ "

Hiccup took a deep breath and _leaned_. "It's not important…"

"The hell it's not. You're taking it seriously enough that you're planning to run away; that's enough for me."

He released his breath and the aura. So much for stopping the inquisition; Astrid was determined.

She must have seen the change in his attitude, because she smirked in satisfaction. "I won't ask again, Obi-Wan: show me your identification."

Hiccup jerked in astonished guilt, if such was possible. Not about the Star Wars reference; that he was a fan was obvious to anyone who looked into his room and _didn't_ immediately see the mess (or looked at the pieces of said mess). Movie posters on the walls, models of the various spaceships and droids on his bookshelf, paraphernalia everywhere. He even had a notebook full of diagrams and hypotheses on how to build a lightsaber, though he'd never shown anyone that.

No, it was that she'd referred to the very first instant of _Jedi mind control_.

Astrid's expression changed so fast she had to have given some facial muscles whiplash – and it changed to that look she'd had yesterday, only several notches more intense, and Hiccup was ready to kick himself for his assumption because it wasn't sexual attraction. No, that was a variation on the primitive beast hunting _prey_ , not a mate.

"And the first thing I want you to tell me is how you did that," she said dangerously.

By the time it occurred to Hiccup that Astrid might be fishing and he could possibly bluff his way out with a "Do what," he'd already stammered so much that she would never believe those two words. He wasn't a good liar anyway, and if she was really determined to suspect every word that left his mouth then the _lean_ would slide right off her. And he would _not_ manipulate her more directly than that.

"I can explain," he finally choked out, "but I can't start _there_. I have to start with…" he put his laptop back on his desk and pointed carefully at the first line on the still-open document, "…that."

"The 'incredibly stupid' part?" Astrid sat on Hiccup's bed and tapped her foot impatiently.

Hiccup saved and closed the document, then powered off the laptop. "I've always been of the opinion that…killing a demon would make my life infinitely better with the kids in town. It might even get me a date." He couldn't look at Astrid; she had always been the girl he most _wanted_ to date. "But, as you know, my dad locks me in the house every night…so I can't even run into a demon." Having a pretty good idea what Astrid was going to do next, he casually went and closed his door. "About a week ago I had the… _brilliant_ , idea…to try and summon a demon."

For a second, all Astrid seemed able to do was gape. Then she let out an incredulous shriek.

" _What?_ "

Hiccup spread his hands wide. "I figured I had nothing to lose. If it worked, I would kill it and present the evidence at school and my reputation would skyrocket; if it didn't work, well, no harm done. Either way for the sake of my skin I would have to hide the evidence from my dad."

Astrid looked like she was running through a mental thesaurus, tracking down every word that ultimately connected back to _stupid_. Then she sighed – and shattered Hiccup's preconception. "I suppose that's one way to do it. Humungous gamble, but…" she shook her head. "I'm guessing it didn't work."

A short, painful laugh escaped Hiccup. "What, exactly, makes you say that?"

She eyed him narrowly. "You never presented any evidence of a successful demon kill, and you're still alive. If something like that actually worked and you had a demon in front of you, you would have two choices: kill or be killed. There's no middle ground."

"Uh, actually…"

"Don't tell me you summoned one of the possessors and it got you."

"Gods, no! I'm not that stupid." Hiccup knelt and carefully rolled up the rug, displaying the scorched symbols. "See, look, I went for the size I did on purpose: I wanted a demon that was small enough that I stood a chance at killing it, but big enough that it couldn't possess me. I was careful, I did my homework – by the time I gave this ritual a go I was sure I knew what I was doing."

Astrid studied the lines right up until the last words left his mouth. Then she looked at him again. "Just out of curiosity then, how was summoning a demon in your bedroom so stupid that you feel the need to write a runaway note?"

"A _precautionary_ runaway note." Hiccup laid the rug back down and gripped his hair. "The stupid part was releasing it instead of killing it."

"Son of a half-troll…" Astrid jumped up, turned in a full circle with her muscles locked tight, and sat back down rigidly. "For Odin's sake, _why_?"

"Because I couldn't kill it!" Hiccup snapped.

"So you released it _instead?_ "

" _I saw myself in his eyes!_ "

The reply to that was true silence. Astrid looked stunned.

Hiccup felt a little stunned himself, at that revelation. His frustration bled away as he followed that thought. "He wasn't big or powerful; I _could_ have killed him with my knife, if I hadn't seen…if all the demons to wander Berk's streets were to form their own town, the one I summoned would be the undersized outcast. And in that circle, that night…he was just as frightened as I was."

"Demons don't feel fear." A halfhearted attempt to argue with the Hiccup of a week ago.

"This one does." He sighed and shook his head. "It was probably wrong and it would definitely get me in trouble, but I can't bring myself to regret it."

Astrid shook her head in turn. "Hiccup, you function on an entirely different set of rules…" suddenly she froze. "Does? 'This one _does_ '? Why would you say _does_?"

Hiccup winced and pointed at the window. "Blessed wards, placed on every opening to the outside world and renewed every Saturday."

" _It's still in the house?_ "

" _Please_ don't shout, you'll bring my dad and I'll have to explain all of this and _really_ get in trouble."

Astrid glared. "He went to the Great Hall before I came upstairs, and you dare tell me not to shout when there's a demon in your closet?" At least she did lower her volume.

Hiccup rolled his eyes and prayed for patience. "He's in the attic, not the closet. He's either mostly-nocturnal or smart enough to figure out when he can get food without having to battle for it."

"And you're really not worried about this."

"I've been at his mercy pretty much all week, and somehow I'm still alive, so…"

"Wait, you go and _visit_ him?"

Hiccup cringed again. "I think he's been calling me up. Summoning _me_."

" _Why?_ "

"So he can sponge off my immunity. To the wards. So he can get out of this house." Hiccup shrugged.

Astrid stared. "And you're okay with this."

"I was freaking out more when I first realized he was still in the house. Then I discovered the side effects and I was more accepting…then I discovered the _other_ side effects and…"

"What side effects? What _other_ side effects?" She was visualizing the rabbit hole at this point.

"I've never been able to beat my cousin at hand-to-hand combat before, even with the element of surprise. I got the strength from the demon…as well as an increased capacity for rage." Hiccup shook his head. "I was cool with the strength, and _hugely_ grateful when he decided to cure my asthma – the night before I ran into you, remember that day?"

Astrid nodded, her eyes narrowing. Perhaps she was remembering his _lack_ of panting when she was sitting on him.

"Anyway, when I realized what was happening to my mind, I was…less cool with it…but I was still willing to accept it because…" he thought for a minute, "…it was something requiring diligence. The strength and the ability to use it, those are both good things, but without conscience they could quickly become very bad. This new temper is _bad_ , but since I know it's there I also know that I have to keep it leashed; it keeps me self-aware, keeps me thinking my actions through carefully, so on the whole it's a good thing."

"And the Jedi mind control?"

Hiccup laughed sheepishly. "I realized that I had mind powers _after_ I used them for the first time…on you, and I'm sorry and in my defense I was panicking…and over the last couple days I've been working out how to use those without abusing them."

There was a thump at the door.

"Um…I guess he wanted to know who I was talking to."

"What?" Astrid looked at the door – and then gaped at Hiccup. "Don't tell me…"

In two steps Hiccup crossed the room and opened the door. Sure enough, there was Toothless; he blinked at Astrid, coolly confident that he could subdue her without spilling blood if he had to.

"Astrid, this is Toothless; Toothless, this is Astrid."

"Toothless?!"

Toothless warbled at the sound of his name, showing Astrid his harmless gums.

"Oh…" Astrid stared. "I've never seen a demon without teeth before."

"He actually _does_ have teeth," Hiccup told her, "it's just that they're not very big, and he can retract them when he doesn't need them."

She didn't seem to have heard him. "Come to think of it…I've never seen a demon quite like this one before. They're all so rough and burly, and he's…cute." The last word was practically spit out, like she hadn't wanted to say it.

Toothless cocked his ears and tilted his head. Astrid made a choking noise; Hiccup was sure that she was trying not to squeal at the downright adorable face.

"My theory is that his kind fled Berk when the electric lights were put up."

"You think his entire 'kind' was all-black?"

Hiccup nodded soberly. "There are stories of the Night Furies; before people could summon enough light to push back the darkness, they were the most terrifying demons to strike Berk."

Astrid stared at Hiccup again. "You think this is a Night Fury, the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself, and you're still okay with his being in the house?"

She had a point. But… "There's almost no information on Night Furies. _Before_ the lights, nobody had ever met one and lived to tell of it; after…well, Toothless has taught me that his kind is extremely intelligent – they probably took one look at glowing-in-the-dark Berk, realized that they'd be targets against the snow even with their speed, and left before anyone could see them."

Astrid shook her head. "You're about to tell me that you're keeping him alive for _research_ purposes."

Hiccup sighed. "And because after all the give-and-take he's done, I'd feel like I was killing myself. _And_ because he makes me feel valued for just existing."

"What do you mean, 'give-and-take'?"

"It's the point of the note." He looked at the rug. "The way he builds his immunity to the wards, it's by trading with me. Trading flesh and blood, I guess because humans in general have automatic immunity. First thing he ever did was completely drain me like a vampire and repay me, drop for drop, with his own blood. Then he started in on other things. For all I know, by the time he can leave _I_ will be completely a demon under the skin." And that thought didn't bother him _nearly_ as much as it should have.

He finally looked Astrid in the eye. "He's not going to give me his scales or his weapons, so there will never be any sign of all this visible to the casual observer. The part of all this that worries me… _really_ worries me…is if somebody who _knows_ I had asthma notices that I'm keeping up with the big boys and not getting short of breath. There's no actual cure for asthma, just treatments."

Astrid looked at the laptop. Then she looked back at Hiccup, a kind of incredulous understanding in her eyes.

"You…" her mouth opened and closed a few times, considering and discarding several possible responses. Finally she shook her head and waved her hands at Hiccup, as though trying to convey that he was beyond talking to. "Any more surprises for me?"

Without stopping to reconsider he replied, "I don't think demons are evil." _Then_ he reconsidered, seeing the look on her face, and quickly amended, "Or at least I don't think it's the province of mortals to say what's evil and what's not. That's a very heavy word." He nodded at Toothless. "This big guy has been here a week, and the only 'damage' he's done has been to make my dad think I have gigantic midnight snacks. He's _helping_ me – by making me stronger and better able to keep up with the others my age, with enough thorns in the mix to keep me humble. It's not a torture, either."

"Hiccup," then Astrid stopped.

Toothless gurgled as though curious what Astrid had been about to say.

For a long minute, nobody said anything. Then Toothless looked at Hiccup – and he felt the demon's energy surge through him. For the sake of convincing the human female to remain quiet he would share his rapture with her, but he had to use _his_ human as a conduit.

 _It's not horrible, but God, this is uncomfortable…_

"Trust me?" he heard himself say.

"What?"

Hiccup turned slowly to stare at Astrid. Toothless's energy was wrapped around her, but hadn't hooked in; on some level he understood that it _wouldn't_ enter her until she agreed to trust.

"Do you trust me?"

Whatever she saw in his face made her pause and evaluate her options. She didn't – quite – look afraid, but the glance that she shot at Toothless clearly had her a bit anxious. Her gaze flicked around the room, at the now-locked window and the door. Finally, and with a lot of reluctance as she looked back at Hiccup's eyes…

"Ye-ess…"

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** I'm going to get a lot of hate for this cliffie, aren't I? ;)_


	8. Through Astrid's Eyes

_**Author's Note:**_ _sorry this took so long; I just wasn't sure how to write this chapter._

* * *

One word, drawn out reluctantly, and suddenly Astrid was in the middle of a storm. No, more than a storm: it was Chaos incarnate. Her vision bled to random colors; a discordant scream rattled in her ears and demolished her sense of balance. She couldn't feel the floor, couldn't find the wall – when her wildly-flailing hands found Hiccup, she grabbed on and clung to him desperately.

His hands patted her back, leaving fire in their wake. His voice blended into the noise, turning it into music that rippled up and down her spine.

It was arousing.

For maybe five seconds, Astrid wondered why she was being aroused by this.

Then her brain shut down and she started riding.

Ice on the outside, volcanic heat on the inside. She was flying through a sky of rapidly whirling stars on wings of adrenaline. _Nothing_ had ever been this exciting. Ever.

* * *

Later – _much_ later – Astrid stretched lazily and opened her eyes. She and Hiccup were on the floor together, so sweaty and tangled up in each other that they might have just had sex. Except that they were both still fully clothed, so _that_ obviously _hadn't_ happened. Toothless was circling them and sniffing curiously, like he was trying to decide what he'd just done.

Hiccup stirred under Astrid and blinked up at her, his eyes more black than green. He smiled sleepily. "Hey."

Astrid smirked back. "Hey yourself." Reluctantly she dragged herself off of him – and then snorted as he drew in an exaggerated breath. "I'm not that heavy, half-demon."

That got a laugh. Hiccup slowly sat up and shook his head. "That was…kind of fun."

"Only 'kind of'?"

"Well, the fact that I was caught in the middle, wasn't much fun."

"What, he was hammering me through you?"

Hiccup cleared his throat awkwardly and started stammering.

Toothless stuck his face between them with a cute noise. Astrid giggled at his confused expression.

"It wasn't… _hammering_ , it was…" Hiccup blinked. "Toothless was talking. Explaining."

"Explaining?" Astrid thought about the storm. There _had_ been words in that; something about how Berk was some kind of sacred ritual ground since long before it was settled by her and Hiccup's ancestors. The demons had been there first; the humans were the interlopers here.

Also something about a ruin and a lake or…

"Did you understand the part about the ruin?" Astrid finally asked, reluctantly conceding defeat.

"Nope. But, to hazard a guess? A previous civilization lived alongside the demons, and while the people are long gone, the demons are still there." Hiccup's nose twitched. "Do, uh…do you want a shower?"

She hadn't even been thinking about a shower until he said it – but the minute she did start thinking about it, she became very aware of her sweaty clothes and how they stuck and stank.

"Yes." It came out a challenge, _daring_ Hiccup to make some offer along the lines of them showering together. Seeming to catch the direction of her thoughts, he coughed.

"Well uh…if you have a change of clothes with you – I mean you said you'd originally came over to see the exercise machine, I would think you'd come prepared to try it out and work up a sweat – then you could go first. Or even if you don't, uh, have spares, you could still go first if you didn't mind borrowing something of mine." Hiccup's face was a deep red by this point. "Or, you know, Option Three would be that _I_ go first and put fresh clothes on, and then I put all of our sweaty clothes in the laundry while you took _your_ shower…"

Astrid laughed. "Oh, shut up." She stood up and retrieved a small duffel from the foot of Hiccup's bed. "I did bring clothes. They're workout clothes, technically; I'd intended to get changed before getting on that exercise machine. Since I'm not likely to get out of here until morning, though, they'll make suitable pajamas." With that she swept out.

Her first thought when she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror was, _I really do look like I've been thoroughly ravished._ Her second thought was, _there was a big off-color spot on Hiccup's dresser wall, like something_ was _hanging there and is now gone._ I _have a dresser mirror that size…_

"Hiccup?" she called out the door, "Did there used to be a mirror on your wall?"

Silence for a long moment. Then, "Um, yeah…why?"

"What happened to it?"

A painful laugh. "That's…actually a really good question. I used it in the Toothless-summoning ritual and, and I haven't looked into it – I haven't _dared_ look into it since."

That was interesting. "I want more details on that after my shower."

More silence. " _Both_ our showers."

He didn't want to talk about the mirror. Tough. Astrid wanted to know what had happened during that ritual. Still, she could accept that he would rather be clean before that conversation.

"Deal."

* * *

Hiccup _really_ didn't want to talk about the mirror. He took his precious sweet time in the shower, and then made Astrid wait in his room while he put their sweaty clothes in the washing machine.

"What's the matter with him?" Astrid asked Toothless.

Toothless looked up from his careful grooming of his tail and blinked at Astrid.

"What happened to your tail, anyway?"

Toothless looked at the unbalanced tail wings. Then he looked up at Astrid again and cocked his ears.

"Do you understand anything I'm saying?"

"Who knows?"

Astrid looked up at Hiccup, who was standing awkwardly in the doorway. His hair stuck out in wet clumps, like he'd been running his fingers through it.

"He seems to understand what _I'm_ saying, but we're…connected on some weird level." Hiccup looked at Toothless. "And, I don't know _exactly_ what happened to his tail; I thought at first that it got ripped up in the summoning, but now I'm not so sure. There was nothing to snag it on in the mirror-portal, and if the summoning-circle was the cause then it would have destroyed _both_ tail wings."

"Mirror-portal," Astrid mused. "That's right, your dad kicks demons through magic mirrors…"

Hiccup winced and nodded.

"…So logically you'd be bringing a demon back _out_ of a mirror."

"And I think the portal thing is still on – at least, I didn't turn it off. I don't know how. But when I was first cleaning up after the summoning, when I touched the mirror I heard this…growl. Like there was a really, really… _big_ demon on the other side, wanting to get in."

Astrid had never seen Hiccup looking so ill-at-ease. "So…you were afraid that if you picked up the mirror and looked in, you'd see this massive demon eye looking back?"

"Pretty much."

"I want to look." She held up a hand, forestalling the protest. "Even assuming you're right and your mirror still opens onto the Netherworld, how do you know Mister Big-And-Growly is still there? And I've always wondered what it looked like – the Netherworld, I mean."

Hiccup blinked, surprised. Then he sighed, resigned, and pointed at the largest pile of clutter. "It's under there. I didn't want to touch it – I still _don't_ want to touch it."

Astrid approached the pile and knelt, edging her fingers carefully under the various junk in search of the mirror.


End file.
